Gadsden's Wharf

The present waterline is deceptive: the former line of the wharf lies farther from it, beneath layers of later fill, where the open space by the museum now stands. This was once a tidal marsh; it was turned into solid ground on long pine piles, with logs laid between them and the salt marsh filled with oyster shells. That is how one of North America's largest wharves grew here, serving the export of rice and indigo. Its warehouses held enslaved people who had arrived by sea before they were put up for sale.

On February twenty-second, eighteen oh six, the Charleston merchants Gibson and Broadfoot corrected a newspaper advertisement. One hundred seventy-three people, brought on the British brig Duddon to be sold into slavery, were supposed to arrive at Vanderhorst's Wharf. In the new advertisement, buyers were directed here, to Gadsden's Wharf. Seven days earlier, the city council had ordered that ships bringing enslaved people from abroad could henceforth dock only here.

The wharf already bore the name of Christopher Gadsden. This Charleston merchant made money exporting rice and indigo and lost part of his profits by renting space from other wharf owners. In seventeen sixty-seven, he began building his own. Enslaved workers drove long pine piles into the marshy ground, laid logs between them, and filled the salt marsh with oyster shells. By seventeen seventy-four, one of the largest wharves in North America stood where there had been a tidal marsh.

Christopher Gadsden died in August eighteen oh five. After his widow's death, management of the property passed to the executors of his will, and just seven days later the city council directed all seaborne imports of African captives here. The ordinance spoke of congestion and danger in the overcrowded port. The documents do not explain why Gadsden's private wharf was chosen for the new monopoly. But Gibson and Broadfoot's corrected advertisement shows how quickly the decision took effect: the sale of the people from the Duddon was moved here immediately.

Over the next twenty-two months, about thirty thousand Africans, brought on nearly two hundred voyages, passed through Gadsden's Wharf. After disembarkation, they were held in large warehouses on the wharf and put up for auction. Shipowners and merchants managed to import as many people as possible before January first, eighteen oh eight, when the federal ban on further importation took effect.

The ban did not free those who had already been brought in. Buyers would not agree to high prices, and merchants refused to make concessions, holding people for months in warehouses and on ships while waiting for a more profitable sale. The traveler John Lambert reported that more than seven hundred captives died in less than three months, while carpenters built burial boxes at the wharf every day. On March fifth, eighteen oh eight, the visitor David Selden wrote to his parents that he saw about four thousand nearly naked Africans covered in lice here. They were still being offered at auction every day to whoever paid the most.

Neither the warehouses nor the wharf itself survives above ground. Its former outer edge lies about twenty-three to twenty-seven meters from the present waterline, beneath ground raised by later fill. Christopher Gadsden's name remained, although his wharf became the sole landing place for slave ships almost half a year after its owner's death.